Filecoin, a decentralized network allowing users to store, request, and transfer data via a verifiable marketplace, today announced integration with Chainlink, the popular decentralized oracle solution.
The integration will enable a bidirectional connection between the Filecoin Network and smart contract enabled blockchains such as Ethereum. Smart contract developers will now have a full Web 3.0 infrastructure stack including blockchains for on-chain logic and state changes, Chainlink oracles for off-chain communication and computation, and Filecoin for decentralized storage and data solutions.
“Chainlink’s work with Filecoin can make the decentralized storage capabilities of Filecoin widely accessible to smart contract development teams across leading blockchains. This allows Filecoin to be a foundational primitive in building Web 3.0 applications, opening up immense possibilities around smart contracts automating Filecoin storage functions and Filecoin state being accessible on other blockchains. Chainlink’s secure infrastructure and extreme flexibility make this all possible, leading to new value for the ecosystem like Filecoin data providers having enhanced monetization capabilities, dApps/DAOs recalling stored data to trigger on-chain actions, insurance contracts triggering payouts based on Filecoin miner activity, and much more.”
– Colin Evran, Ecosystem Lead at Protocol Labs
Use-Cases
With the integration, users can leverage Chainlink to bridge cryptographically-proven data stored on Filecoin to external smart contract systems as a means of triggering their on-chain applications; as well as using Chainlink oracles to enable smart contracts to trigger Filecoin’s storage capabilities.
Initial use cases being explored include:
- Filecoin Miner Insurance – Chainlink oracles can monitor the current state of Filecoin miners, and if they go offline or cannot successfully retrieve data from storage, an alert is relayed to an insurance smart contract on another blockchain to automatically execute payouts to policyholders. For example, storing NFT data on Filecoin, with on-chain punishment if it cannot be retrieved in a timely manner.
- DataDAOs — A DataDAO, or a DAO holding extensive datasets like historical price databases or research data, can leverage Filecoin to store their datasets. Chainlink oracles can then deliver portions of the data to smart contracts on other blockchains, creating new revenue streams for DataDAOs.
- Data Bounties — Smart contracts that request certain datasets as characterized by their unique CIDs can be stored on Filecoin. Payments can be triggered when the dataset is verifiably proven on Filecoin and relayed through Chainlink.
- DeFi Data — Leveraging Filecoin for cheaper data storage, Chainlink can enable a large amount of financial market data to be stored on Filecoin long-term, which is then delivered to other blockchains on-demand to support more advanced DeFi applications.
- Automated Storage — Smart contracts can use Chainlink oracle services to automatically store some type of data on Filecoin at specific intervals, creating tamper-proof and highly efficient data archives. For example, information such as payout schedules and bonding curves—which provide key insights for investors but take up a large amount of storage—can be automatically stored on Filecoin.
“With more and more developers wanting to build Web 3.0 solutions that are decentralized end-to-end, integrating Chainlink with Filecoin creates a secure and reliable bidirectional bridge that enables Filecoin, other blockchains, and external APIs to seamlessly share data with one another. Chainlink’s extensive network of secure node operators, crypto-economic incentives, and expansive off-chain connectivity provides users with a highly reliable and fully-featured set of decentralized oracle services for automating functions that rely on some combination of Filecoin’s storage capabilities and the execution of externally connected applications.”
– Daniel Kochis, Head of Chainlink Business Development